1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to point-of-sale, checkout systems and, more particularly, to a mobile system encompassing all necessary elements to conduct a merchandise transaction process in a retail supermarket environment, with the unique ability of being easily transported from location to location.
2. Description of Related Art
Shopping patterns in supermarkets, both domestic and abroad, tend to be fairly predictable following well-defined routines that no doubt can be traced to the traditional "pay day" in a given geographical locale. Consequently, there are typically several peak shopping days within the given calendar week in which a significantly large percentage of the food retailers' overall business is conducted.
This cyclical shopping behavior results in large numbers of consumers in the supermarket at a given time, necessitating the existence of ample checkout lanes, commonly referred to as "check stands" to handle such volume in a timely fashion The drawback to this situation is that during the majority of the calendar week a number of check stands go unused.
As a food retail operation's profitability is often measured in terms of revenue per square foot, one can clearly see that unproductive space, namely, unattended check stands, is detrimental to the profitability of the business operation.
Traditionally, the check stand in the supermarket is a stationary device that is fixed in place by some means of physical attachment to a floor. This check stand normally includes a motorized drive belt to transport a shopper's goods to a point easily accessible to an operator. This check stand also commonly provides a mounting area for a laser scanner. A computing device, commonly referred to as a point-of-sale (POS) terminal, is usually mounted on its own pedestal, directly next to the check stand. These two items together are commonly referred to as a "checkout". This checkout configuration is large and virtually impossible to move once it is in place.
Laser scanners of the type exemplified by U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,251,798; 4,360,798; 4,369,361; 4,387,297; 4,593,186; 4,496,831; 4,409,470; 4,460,120; 4,607,156; 4,673,803; 4,736,095; 4,758,717; 4,816,660; 4,808,804; 4,816,661; 4,760,248; 4,871,904; 4,806,742; 4,845,350, as well as U.S. application Ser. Nos. 148,669 and 147,708--all of said patents and patent applications being owned by the assignee of the instant invention and being incorporated by reference herein--are known and are operative to read indicia having parts of different light reflectivity, e.g., bar code symbols, particularly of the Universal Product Code (UPC) type.